In Canto XXXIV of Dante’s Inferno, the depiction of Satan in an unusual way implies the monstrous nature of his size and the extent of the extreme punishment for the other three men residing in this circle. This image of Satan portrays the capacity of his evil. Built for the worst sinners, the punishments in the final circle of hell encompass everyone there, including Satan. Ordinarily portrayed as flaming, red, and hot, Dante’s description and punishment for Satan connects to the ice that surrounds him instead. Satan freezes himself in the ice around him every time he attempts to escape, making his punishment a continual struggle that he experiences. Described as having wings, “like a bat’s” that he agitates “so that three winds made their way out from him” (Inferno 34.51) creates an image of the massive nature of Satan’s size and the power of his wings. If Satan were to escape, it would be detrimental to the world that lies far above him. This image of Satan provides an understanding of his evil as something that cannot escape and therefore kept the farthest away from good. …show more content…
The three sinners residing with Satan betrayed their benefactors, so they endure constant chewing by one of Satan’s heads. Because he sinned against God’s son, Judas receives the worst punishment with his head inside Satan’s forward facing mouth with Satan continually clawing at his back. The other two men sinned against Julius Caesar and therefore sinned against Rome and Italy. The three heads and sinners present a Holy Trinity parallel, but opposite, of Heaven’s, which contains the most evil sinners, including the first to “[raise] his brows/ against his maker,” (34.35-36) Satan. This portrayal of Satan and the sinners suggests that this group is completely full of evil with no goodness left inside of them, truly opposite of
God states that we treat each other with the love he gives to us as individuals; while us stating violent acts against love, fraud constituting a corruption and, greed becoming normal thing amongst people defines everything god had envisioned for mankind. Yet, while Inferno implies these moral arguments, it generally states very little about them. Dante discusses with each of the souls in the different circles of hell although it is not truly stated as to why they are specifically in that circle. Only because God justifies there sin belonged there. In the end, it declares that evil is evil, simply because it contradicts God’s will and justification, and since God is God, he thus does not need to be questioned about his morals. Dante’s journey of evil progressed as he winded down the depths of hell pitiless and was driven to make it to purgatory. Inferno is not the normal text that most people would read, then think about how it relates to todays morals; its intention is not to think about the evil discussed but, rather to emphasize the Christian beliefs that Dante followed through his journey.
On the other hand, the punishments that are borrowed from medieval torture techniques and imprisonment inflicts a physical and bodily pain upon the sufferer that is supposed to be taken literally. In the Medieval Era, their prisons were more like dungeons in the way that they were usually dark rooms with naked and ragged men that were chained to the stone floors. These prisoners were not allowed to move so they had to live in their own excrements, blood, and vomit which ended up filling the room with an odor that was so pungent it could have been a form of torture within itself. Dante used this idea of darkness and awful smells throughout the Inferno as the overall atmosphere of Hell. Also, the idea of the fiery and icy environments that Dante incorporates comes from the medieval prisons where the room would get so hot the prisoners would feel like they were on fire, and during the winter it would be extremely frigid. These ideas of extreme temperatures and darkness are only a few of the torture devices that Dante uses throughout his novel.
The struggle between good and evil, the rewards of Heaven, and the consequences of sin are all Christian themes shared in the works of Hildegard, Dante, and Milton. While their works vary in style and substance, they are informed by a common religious background and understanding. Hildegard’s Ordo Virtutum, Dante’s Inferno, and Milton’s Paradise Lost all have a common character in Satan. Satan in both the Ordo Virtutum and Inferno appears in a significant, but limited role. In Paradise Lost, Satan is a primary character and expresses a full range of traits and provokes a wide range of responses from the audience.
The first thing you would notice is the overall irony of Hell itself. As mentioned, most people have a view that Hell is very chaotic and in disarray. However, In Canto IV we find out that Hell is actually very organized. The structure of it is in fact “a great funnel-shaped cave… with its bottom point at the Earth’s center. Around this great circular depression runs a series of ledges, each of which Dante calls a CIRCLE.” (Alighieri 25). Most pictures you see of hell show images of very distressed people and demons running around in turmoil. They are usually all over the place and no sense of organization is apparent. There is also a map of hell that Dante has drawn in order to give us a clearer image of what Hell supposedly looks like (Alighieri 26). Through this we find that Dante has applied his use irony into the very structure of Hell. We also see that the people we thought were myths actually exist – in Dante’s eyes. Scattered throughout the book, we see several mythological characters that have indeed descended into Hell. On...
Dante introduces Satan in the “Inferno” as the worst sinner of all times, and he relates his complexity with the sins that he committed and his punishment. Satan is described as the angel who rebelled against God, and hence he has wings. The wings of Lucifer are not the wings that an angel would have; instead he has bat-like wings, which demonstrates that now he has the wings the dark creatures as bats have. He is firstly in the story presented as an impure monster that is trapped in ice and unable to escape. “No feathers had they, but as of a bat their fashion was, and he was waving them, so that three winds proceeded forth therefrom” (Canto 34, 50).Dante’s depiction of Satan is different from the common known version of Satan, which is
Satan is an allegorical representation of God the Father. Both Satan and God are seen as Father figures; God as the Father of all that is virtuous, and Satan as the Father of all that is wicked. Just as God is the King of heaven, Satan claims himself King of Hell. God is the originator of Goodness, as Satan is the originator of Evilness. All in all, Satan is a perverse representation of God.
Distinguishing between right and wrong are vital to making good decisions. However, the bible says that “for all have sinned, and come short to the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Many times people lean towards temptation and get trapped in wickedness, consequently, leading to trouble in the future. In the epic poem Inferno, Dante Alighieri proves that conflict within one’s self is the underlying reason why people perform certain acts of sin in the living world, leading to troubled eternal lives.
Dante Alighieri presents a vivid and awakening view of the depths of Hell in the first book of his Divine Comedy, the Inferno. The reader is allowed to contemplate the state of his own soul as Dante "visits" and views the state of the souls of those eternally assigned to Hell's hallows. While any one of the cantos written in Inferno will offer an excellent description of the suffering and justice of hell, Canto V offers a poignant view of the assignment of punishment based on the committed sin. Through this close reading, we will examine three distinct areas of Dante's hell: the geography and punishment the sinner is restricted to, the character of the sinner, and the "fairness" or justice of the punishment in relation to the sin. Dante's Inferno is an ordered and descriptive journey that allows the reader the chance to see his own shortcomings in the sinners presented in the text.
In Dante’s Inferno, Dante is taken on a journey through hell. On this journey, Dane sees the many different forms of sin, and each with its own unique contrapasso, or counter-suffering. Each of these punishments reflects the sin of a person, usually offering some ironic way of suffering as a sort of revenge for breaking God’s law. As Dante wrote this work and developed the contrapassos, he allows himself to play God, deciding who is in hell and why they are there. He uses this opportunity to strike at his foes, placing them in the bowels of hell, saying that they have nothing to look forward to but the agony of suffering and the separation from God.
Another aspect of hell that surprised me was that the devil was standing on a frozen lake. This isn't the picture of Larson's Far Side hell scenes, nor is the devil the cool, rebellious bad boy of Milton's Paradise Lost.
First, it is important to note that throughout Inferno, Dante (as the author) uses four different terms to refer to the king of hell; the names used are: Lucifer, Dis, Beelzebub, and Satan. In Canto 34, the first three terms are each used once. According to the notes in Allen Mandelbaum’s translation of Inferno, The first term Lucifer, means “light bearer” and was used to describe “the most beautiful of all the angels before he rebelled against God.” After his Rebellion and expulsion from heaven, “Lucifer was renamed Satan” (fourth term). The second term Dis, was “used by Virgil in the Aeneid to describe Pluto; Dante then adopts this term to refer to Lucifer instead.” Lastly, the term Beelzebub, comes from the bible where it was “the name given to the chief of all devils in the Gospels.” The term Beelzebub also refers to “a false god who is powerless in front of the true divinity.” Lucifer’s appearance is described in great detail in what seems to be an effort to emphasize the theme of deceit; After all, it was Lucifer’s betrayal of God that landed him, a once beautiful creature, in a pitiful place and what gave him the most repulsive physical features. In lines 28-37, Dante (the pilgrim) narrates the sight of Lucifer in the
Dante’s Inferno presents the reader with many questions and thought provoking dialogue to interpret. These crossroads provide points of contemplation and thought. Dante’s graphic depiction of hell and its eternal punishment is filled with imagery and allegorical meanings. Examining one of these cruxes of why there is a rift in the pits of hell, can lead the reader to interpret why Dante used the language he did to relate the Idea of a Just and perfect punishment by God.
Inferno, the first part of Divina Commedia, or the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri, is the story of a man's journey through Hell and the observance of punishments incurred as a result of the committance of sin. In all cases the severity of the punishment, and the punishment itself, has a direct correlation to the sin committed. The punishments are fitting in that they are symbolic of the actual sin; in other words, "They got what they wanted." (Literature of the Western World, p.1409) According to Dante, Hell has two divisions: Upper Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of incontinence, and Lower Hell, devoted to those who perpetrated sins of malice. The divisions of Hell are likewise split into levels corresponding to sin. Each of the levels and the divisions within levels 7,8, and 9 have an analogous historical or mythological figure used to illustrate and exemplify the sin.
In conclusion, a great deal of tension and contrast between “dark” and “light” in The Inferno helps us to explore Dante’s self portrait—he fears dangerous desires and sinful darkness, but shows much courage and hope towards life since he nevertheless follows his guide Virgil to dive into horrible Hell. As shown in Canto I, such emotional reaction to dark and light symbols lays a great foundation for developing Dante’s broad and universal traits as his journey progresses.
Ask anyone to draw Satan and you 'll get a red snake-like figure with horns and a pitchfork. Satan, as introduced in the Hebrew bible is an unworthy adversary of God. His longing to be like God is quickly recognized and dealt with. God banishes him from Heaven and sends him to Hell. That 's the last we see of him until he talks with God about his faithful servant Job. In each interaction we see Satan in, we get only a glimpse of who he really is. Satan 's motive is not developed and we assume he does evil simply because he is evil